Say What?

It is with absolute affection that I delight in the kids' evolving mastery of the English language.

Even our little, American-born linguist -- Baylor -- has created humor for us with "Glam Slam" (instead of Glam Salon) or "Cookie Dough Carving" (yep, you guessed it -- Craving). 

Most notably, nuance and connotation are lost in Anna and Jameson's early phase of translation -- "It's a bad song" sounds pretty judgmental, but do you know how to indicate in a foreign language that you prefer something different to which to listen?  Okay, maybe you do, but I sure as heck do not.  When preparing my Kreyol messages for our call to Haiti, I lost any sense of eloquence in having to reword and reword so that I was able to translate with my English-Kreyol dictionary.  It's tough stuff.

The really cute things, though, are purely grammatical -- like their endings on words  .  .  .  "I'm scared" comes out as "I'm scary."  (And this phrase is used a lot in story-telling about the past.)  And the "s" is almost always lost on plurals -- "I pray that Jesus protect all my sister in Haiti  .  .  . " 

On a lighter note, when cold, they get "chicken skin," which was a nice chuckle, but the most entertaining habit is that Jameson has learned to pantomime some of his speaking as he talks so as to be better understood.  He wondered to Daddy, "How girl(s) play basketball with, you know (hands cupped beneath his chest) 'boom-boom'?"  Imagine, really, a wide-eyed, young boy asking this IN EARNEST.  Now, definitely funny.